Skip to content
Fiction Becomes Fact

Auto mount folders with CIFS at startup

Introduction

Setup shared folders with CIFS and mount automatically at startup. This worked for me within Ubuntu. For example, the shared folder can be on a NAS or a file server.

Setup with fstab

  1. Install CIFS Utils

    Run the following command:

    # Open your terminal application
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
  2. Create the folder to which you want to point the mount

    This can be a shared folder from your NAS of fileserver. Run the following commands:

    # Open your terminal application
    cd /mnt
    sudo mkdir -p fileserver/archive
    cd /home # Go to home where in step 4 .smbcred will be saved
    # IMPORTANT: Please read the instructions below
    Instructions:
    • Required Replace fileserver/archive with your own folder
  3. Add to /etc/fstab
    /etc/fstab
    # To edit use your text editor application, for example Nano
    //fileserver/archive /mnt/fileserver/archive/ cifs vers=3.0,credentials=/home/.smbcred,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,iocharset=utf8,nofail 0 0
    # IMPORTANT: Please read the instructions below
    Instructions:
    • Required Replace //fileserver/archive with your shared folder, for example the folder on your NAS or fileserver
    • Required Replace /mnt/fileserver/archive/ with the local folder you created earlier to point the mount to
  4. Save the credentials to a separate .smbcred file
    /home/.smbcred
    # To create this script use your text editor application, for example Nano
    username=<username>
    password=<password>
    # IMPORTANT: Please read the instructions below
    Instructions:
    • Required Replace <username> with your username of the shared folder (on the file server or NAS)
    • Required Replace <password> with your password of the shared folder (on the file server or NAS)
  5. Test if it works

    Run the following command:

    # Open your terminal application
    sudo mount -a

Comments

    No comments found for this note.

    Join the discussion for this note on Github. Comments appear on this page instantly.

    Tags:
    Copyright 2021-2025 Fiction Becomes Fact